Contents

Initially, the club would meet one evening per week at seven, at the Turk's Head Inn in Gerrard Street, Soho. Later, meetings were reduced to once per fortnight whilst Parliament was in session, and were held at rooms in St James's Street. Though the initial suggestion was Reynolds', it is Johnson whose name is most closely associated with the Club. John Timbs, in his Club Life in London, gives an account of the Club's centennial dinner in 1864, which was celebrated at the Clarendon hotel. Henry Hart Milman, the English historian, was treasurer. The Club's toast, no doubt employing a bit of wishful thinking, was "Esto perpetua", Latin for "Let it be perpetual". This Latin phrase traces its origin to the last dying declaration of Paolo Sarpi (1552–1623) the Venetian theologian and philosopher and canon law expert who uttered these words towards the Venetian Republic, whose independence he devoutly espoused. The introduction of the phrase to Britain was probably through Sir Joshua Reynolds who went to Italy for his higher training in Renaissance art and painting with the contemporary Italian masters.

Hereafter membership was by unanimous election only. Existing members would submit a black ball if a nominee was disfavored. Shortly following the establishment of the original nine, Samuel Dyer became the first elected member. Hawkins left in 1768, suffering ostracism for his verbal abuse of Burke. Membership was then increased to 12; the new seats were filled by barrister Robert Chambers, and writers Thomas Percy and George Colman. A membership of 12 was deemed optimal to retain a qualitative exclusivity. Of Johnson's goal, Percy claimed:

It was intended the Club should consist of Such men, as that if only Two of them chanced to meet, they should be able to entertain each other without wanting the addition of more Company to pass the Evening agreeably.

Later member Charles Burney wrote that Johnson wanted a group "composed of the heads of every liberal and literary profession" and "have somebody to refer to in our doubts and discussions, by whose Science we might be enlightened."

By 1783 the number had risen again to 35, including several Whig politicians, so that Johnson and other older members began to attend dinners less frequently. Johnson even founded another club, the Essex Head Club.[4] A fact often neglected was that when the Club was founded, Edmund Burke had already founded a successful political and debating society, Edmund Burke's Club (in 1747), whilst still a student at Trinity college, Dublin. It has been suggested that the Club was initially no more than a kind of friendship club, initiated by Joshua Reynolds to help the lonely Dr Samuel Johnson. But it was no doubt Burke who pushed for the idea of a Club rather than just a circle of friends, and it was his personality that had the greater influence; hence the increasingly political nature of the Club in the next century.

By 1791, eight years after the death of Johnson, the membership recorded by James Boswell included:

Winston Churchill and F. E. Smith had both desired to join The Club but were considered too controversial. In response, in 1911, they founded The Other Club, which continues to maintain itself as a political dining society. Meanwhile, the Club is known to have survived at least as late as 1969.[6]

1.
Joshua Reynolds
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Sir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA was an influential eighteenth-century English painter, specialising in portraits. He promoted the Grand Style in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect and he was a founder and first president of the Royal Academy of Arts, and was knighted by George III in 1769. Reynolds was born in Plympton, Devon, on 16 July 1723 the third son of the Rev. Samuel Reynolds and his father had been a fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, but did not send any of his sons to the university. One of his sisters was Mary Palmer, seven years his senior, author of Devonshire Dialogue, in 1740 she provided £60, half of the premium paid to Thomas Hudson the portrait-painter, for Joshuas pupilage, and nine years later advanced money for his expenses in Italy. His other siblings included Frances Reynolds and Elizabeth Johnson, as a boy, he came under the influence of Zachariah Mudge, whose Platonistic philosophy stayed with him all his life. The work that came to have the most influential impact on Reynolds was Jonathan Richardsons An Essay on the Theory of Painting, having shown an early interest in art, Reynolds was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable London portrait painter Thomas Hudson, who had been born in Devon. Hudson had a collection of old master drawings, including some by Guercino, although apprenticed to Hudson for four years, Reynolds only remained with him until summer 1743. Having left Hudson, Reynolds worked for some time as a portrait-painter in Plymouth Dock and he returned to London before the end of 1744, but following his fathers death in late 1745 he shared a house in Plymouth Dock with his sisters. In 1749, Reynolds met Commodore Augustus Keppel, who invited him to join HMS Centurion, of which he had command, while with the ship he visited Lisbon, Cadiz, Algiers, and Minorca. From Minorca he travelled to Livorno in Italy, and then to Rome, while in Rome he suffered a severe cold, which left him partially deaf, and, as a result, he began to carry a small ear trumpet with which he is often pictured. Reynolds travelled homeward overland via Florence, Bologna, Venice, and he was accompanied by Giuseppe Marchi, then aged about 17. Apart from a brief interlude in 1770, Marchi remained in Reynolds employment as an assistant for the rest of the artists career. Following his arrival in England in October 1752, Reynolds spent three months in Devon, before establishing himself in London, where he remained for the rest of his life. He took rooms in St Martins Lane, before moving to Great Newport Street and he achieved success rapidly, and was extremely prolific. In 1760 Reynolds moved into a house, with space to show his works and accommodate his assistants. Alongside ambitious full-length portraits, Reynolds painted large numbers of smaller works, in the late 1750s, at the height of the social season, he received five or six sitters a day, each for an hour. By 1761 Reynolds could command a fee of 80 guineas for a full-length portrait, the clothing of Reynolds sitters was usually painted either by one of his pupils, his studio assistant Giuseppe Marchi, or the specialist drapery painter Peter Toms. Lay figures were used to model the clothes and he had an excellent vantage from his house, Wick House, on Richmond Hill, and painted the view in about 1780

2.
Samuel Johnson
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Johnson was a devout Anglican and committed Tory, and is described by the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history. He is also the subject of perhaps the most famous biography in English literature, born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, Johnson attended Pembroke College, Oxford for just over a year, before his lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London, where he began to write for The Gentlemans Magazine and his early works include the biography Life of Mr Richard Savage, the poems London and The Vanity of Human Wishes, and the play Irene. After nine years of work, Johnsons A Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755 and it had a far-reaching effect on Modern English and has been described as one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship. This work brought Johnson popularity and success, until the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary 150 years later, Johnsons was viewed as the pre-eminent British dictionary. His later works included essays, an annotated edition of The Plays of William Shakespeare. In 1763, he befriended James Boswell, with whom he travelled to Scotland. Towards the end of his life, he produced the massive and influential Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Johnson was a tall and robust man. His odd gestures and tics were disconcerting to some on first meeting him, after a series of illnesses, he died on the evening of 13 December 1784, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Born on 18 September 1709, to Michael Johnson, a bookseller and he did not cry and, with doubts surrounding the newborns health, his aunt exclaimed that she would not have picked such a poor creature up in the street. Since it was feared that the baby die, the vicar of St Marys was summoned to perform a baptism. Two godfathers were chosen, Samuel Swynfen, a physician and graduate of Pembroke College, Oxford, and Richard Wakefield, a lawyer, coroner, Johnsons health improved and he was put to wet-nurse with Joan Marklew. He soon contracted scrofula, known at time as the Kings Evil because it was thought royalty could cure it. Sir John Floyer, former physician to King Charles II, recommended that the young Johnson should receive the royal touch, however, the ritual was ineffective, and an operation was performed that left him with permanent scars across his face and body. Johnson demonstrated signs of intelligence as a child, and his parents, to his later disgust. His education began at the age of three, and was provided by his mother, who had him memorise and recite passages from the Book of Common Prayer. When Samuel turned four, he was sent to a nearby school, a year later, Johnson went to Lichfield Grammar School, where he excelled in Latin. During this time, Johnson started to exhibit the tics that would influence how people viewed him in his years

3.
Edmund Burke
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Burke criticized British treatment of the American colonies, including through its taxation policies. Burke is remembered for his support for Catholic emancipation, the impeachment of Warren Hastings from the East India Company, in the nineteenth century Burke was praised by both conservatives and liberals. Subsequently, in the century, he became widely regarded as the philosophical founder of modern conservatism. Burke was born in Dublin, Ireland, Burke adhered to his fathers faith and remained a practising Anglican throughout his life, unlike his sister Juliana who was brought up as and remained a Roman Catholic. Although never denying his Irishness, Burke often described himself as an Englishman, according to the historian J. C. D. Clark, this was in an age before Celtic nationalism sought to make Irishness and Englishness incompatible. As a child he spent time away from the unhealthy air of Dublin with his mothers family in the Blackwater Valley in County Cork. He received his education at a Quaker school in Ballitore, County Kildare, some 67 kilometres from Dublin. He remained in correspondence with his schoolmate from there, Mary Leadbeater, in 1744, Burke started at Trinity College Dublin, a Protestant establishment, which up until 1793, did not permit Catholics to take degrees. The minutes of the meetings of Burkes Club remain in the collection of the Historical Society, Burke graduated from Trinity in 1748. Burkes father wanted him to read Law, and with this in mind he went to London in 1750, after eschewing the Law, he pursued a livelihood through writing. The late Lord Bolingbrokes Letters on the Study and Use of History was published in 1752 and this provoked Burke into writing his first published work, A Vindication of Natural Society, A View of the Miseries and Evils Arising to Mankind, appearing in Spring 1756. Burke imitated Bolingbrokes style and ideas in a reductio ad absurdum of his arguments for atheistic rationalism, Burke claimed that Bolingbrokes arguments against revealed religion could apply to all social and civil institutions as well. Lord Chesterfield and Bishop Warburton initially thought that the work was genuinely by Bolingbroke rather than a satire, all the reviews of the work were positive, with critics especially appreciative of Burkes quality of writing. Some reviewers failed to notice the ironic nature of the book, a minority of scholars have taken the position that, in fact, Burke did write the Vindication in earnest, later disowning it only for political reasons. It was his only purely philosophical work, and when asked by Sir Joshua Reynolds and French Laurence to expand it thirty years later and it was to be submitted for publication by Christmas 1758. G. M. Young did not value Burkes history and claimed that it was demonstrably a translation from the French. Lord Acton, on commenting on the story that Burke stopped his history because David Hume published his, Burke remained the chief editor of the publication until at least 1789 and there is no evidence that any other writer contributed to it before 1766. On 12 March 1757, Burke married Jane Mary Nugent, daughter of Dr Christopher Nugent and their son Richard was born on 9 February 1758, an elder son, Christopher, died in infancy

4.
Chinatown, London
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The name Chinatown has been used at different times to describe different places in London. The present Chinatown is part of the City of Westminster, occupying the area in and it contains a number of Chinese restaurants, bakeries, supermarkets, souvenir shops, and other Chinese-run businesses. The first area in London known as Chinatown was located in the Limehouse area of the East End of London. At the start of the 20th century, the Chinese population of London was concentrated in that area, the area began to become known through exaggerated reports and tales of opium dens and slum housing, rather than the Chinese restaurants and supermarkets in the current Chinatown. However, much of the area was damaged by bombing during the Blitz in World War II. After World War II, however, the popularity of Chinese cuisine. The present Chinatown, which is off Shaftesbury Avenue did not start to be established until the 1970s, up until then, it was a regular Soho area, run-down, with Gerrard Street the main thoroughfare. Other businesses included a bakers, the Sari Centre, Lesgrain French Coffee House, Harrison Marks Glamour Studio. Probably the first Chinese restaurants opened in Lisle Street, parallel to Gerrard St, the Tailor & Cutter did not close down until around 1974. The area boasts over 80 restaurants showcasing some of Londons finest and most authentic Asian cuisine, in 2005, the property developer Rosewheel proposed a plan to redevelop the eastern part of Chinatown. The London Chinatown Community Centre has been housed in the Chinatown area since it was founded in 1980 by Dr Abraham Lue, the Centre claims to have received 40,000 people for help and assistance since its foundation. Located since 1998 on the 2nd floor of 28-29 Gerrard Street, vale Royal House, a large residential block, houses a number of families, professionals and single men and women. The block was built in the 1980s and houses the China Town car park underneath it, john Dryden lived for a while at 43 Gerrard Street, which is commemorated by a blue plaque. Another plaque, on number 9, marks the meeting of Samuel Johnson and Joshua Reynolds at the Turks Head Tavern to found The Club, a dining club, in 1764. In fiction, Charles Dickens sets the home of Mr Jaggers, rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows a stone hall. A Royal Society of Arts blue plaque commemorates Edmund Burke at 37 Gerrard Street, in the Roaring Twenties, the 43 Club was set up at number 43, as a jazz club notorious for outrageous parties frequented by the rich and powerful. It was eventually closed down by order of the Home Office. Ronnie Scotts Jazz Club started in Gerrard Street in the basement of No.39, in 1953, No.4 Gerrard Street was a small studio where the theatrical photographer George Harrison Marks and his partner Pamela Green, lived and worked

5.
Soho
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Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and is part of the West End of London, England. Since the 1980s, the area has undergone considerable gentrification and it is now predominantly a fashionable district of upmarket restaurants and media offices, with only a small remnant of sex industry venues. Soho is a small, multicultural area of central London, a home to industry, commerce, culture and entertainment, record shops cluster in the area around Berwick Street, with shops such as Phonica, Sister Ray and Reckless Records. On many weekends, Soho is busy enough to warrant closing off some of the streets to vehicles, Westminster City Council pedestrianised parts of Soho in the mid-1990s, but later removed much of the pedestrianisation, apparently after complaints of loss of trade from local businesses. The name Soho first appears in the 17th century, Most authorities believe that the name derives from a former hunting cry. James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, used soho as a call for his men at the Battle of Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685. The Soho name has been imitated by other entertainment and restaurant districts such as Soho, Hong Kong, Soho, Málaga, SOHO, Beijing, SoHo, London, Ontario, Canada, and Palermo Soho, Buenos Aires. SoHo, Manhattan, gets its name from its location SOuth of HOuston Street, however, apart from Oxford Street, all of these roads are 19th-century metropolitan improvements, so they are not Sohos original boundaries. Soho has never been a unit, with formally defined boundaries. The area to the west is known as Mayfair, to the north Fitzrovia, to the east St Giles and Covent Garden, and to the south St Jamess. According to the Soho Society, Chinatown, the area between Leicester Square to the south and Shaftesbury Avenue to the north, is part of Soho, Soho is part of the West End electoral ward which elects three councillors to Westminster City Council. In 1536, the land was taken by Henry VIII as a park for the Palace of Whitehall. In the 1660s, ownership of Soho Fields passed to Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of St Albans and he was granted permission to develop property and quickly passed the lease and development to bricklayer Richard Frith. Soho was part of the ancient parish of St Martin in the Fields, as the population started to grow a new church was provided and in 1687 a new parish of St Anne was established for it. The parish stretched from Oxford Street in the north, to Leicester Square in the south and it therefore included all of contemporary eastern Soho, including the Chinatown area. The western portion of modern Soho, around Carnaby Street was part of the parish of St James, building progressed rapidly in the late 17th century, with large properties including Monmouth House, Leicester House, Fauconberg House, Carlisle House and Newport House. Soho Square was first laid out in the 1680s on the former Soho Fields, firth built the first houses around the square, and by 1691,41 had been completed. It was originally called King Square in honour of Charles II, several upper-class families moved into the area

6.
Paolo Sarpi
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His writings, frankly polemical and highly critical of the Catholic Church and its Scholastic tradition, inspired both Hobbes and Gibbon in their own historical debunkings of priestcraft. Organized around single topics, they are examples of the genre of the historical monograph. His extensive network of correspondents included Francis Bacon and William Harvey, acting himself in that spirit, Sarpi published several pamphlets in defense of Venices rights over the Adriatic. As such, Sarpi could be considered as an advocate of the Freedom of the Press. He was born Pietro Sarpi in Venice and his father was a merchant, although not a successful one, his mother a Venetian noblewoman. While he was still a child his father died, the brilliant and precocious boy was educated by his maternal uncle, a school teacher, and then by Giammaria Capella, monk in the Augustinian Servite order. At the age of thirteen he entered the Servite order in 1566, assuming the name of Fra Paolo, by which, with the epithet Servita, Sarpi was assigned to a monastery in Mantua around 1567. In 1570 he sustained theses at a disputation there, and was invited to remain as court theologian to Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga, Sarpi remained four years at Mantua, studying mathematics and oriental languages. He then went to Milan in 1575, where he was an adviser to Charles Borromeo, in 1579, he became Provincial of the Venetian Province of the Servite order, while studying at the University of Padua. At the age of twenty-seven he was appointed Procurator General for the order, in this capacity he was sent to Rome, where he interacted with three successive popes, as well as the grand inquisitor and other influential people. Sarpi returned to Venice in 1588, and passed the next 17 years in study, an attempt to obtain another bishopric in the following year also failed, Pope Clement VIII having taken offense at Sarpis habit of corresponding with learned heretics. Clement VIII died in March 1605, and the attitude of his successor Pope Paul V strained the limits of papal prerogative and these laws had been extended over the entire territory of the republic. In January 1606, the papal nuncio delivered a brief demanding the submission of the Venetians. The senate promised protection to all ecclesiastics who should in this emergency aid the republic by their counsel. Sarpi presented a memoir, pointing out that the threatened censures might be met in two ways – de facto, by prohibiting their publication, and de jure, by an appeal to a general council. The document was received, and Sarpi was made canonist. The following April, hopes of compromise were dispelled by Pauls excommunication of the Venetians, Sarpi entered energetically into the controversy. It was unprecedented for an ecclesiastic of his eminence to argue the subjection of the clergy to the state and he began by republishing the anti-papal opinions of the canonist Jean Gerson

7.
David Garrick
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He appeared in a number of amateur theatricals, and with his appearance in the title role of Shakespeares Richard III, audiences and managers began to take notice. Impressed by his portrayals of Richard III and a number of roles, Charles Fleetwood engaged Garrick for a season at the Theatre Royal. He remained with the Drury Lane company for the five years. This purchase inaugurated 29 years of Garricks management of the Drury Lane, at his death, three years after his retirement from Drury Lane and the stage, he was given a lavish public funeral at Westminster Abbey where he was laid to rest in Poets Corner. As an actor, Garrick promoted realistic acting that departed from the style that was entrenched when he first came to prominence. His acting delighted many audiences and his direction of many of the top actors of the English stage influenced their styles as well, during his tenure as manager of Drury Lane, Garrick also sought to reform audience behaviour. While this led to discontent among the theatre-going public, many of his reforms eventually did take hold. Garrick also sought reform in matters, bringing an overarching consistency to productions that included set design, costumes. Garricks influence extended into the side of theatre as well. Critics are almost unanimous in saying he was not a good playwright, in addition, he adapted many older plays in the repertoire that might have been forgotten. These included many plays of the Restoration era, indeed, while influencing the theatre towards a better standard he also gained a better reputation for theatre folk. This accomplishment led Samuel Johnson to remark that his profession made him rich, Garrick was born at the Angel Inn, Widemarsh Street, Hereford in 1717 into a family with French Huguenot roots in the Languedoc region of Southern France. Garricks grandfather, David Garric, was in Bordeaux in 1685 when the Edict of Nantes was abolished, revoking the rights of Protestants in France. David Garric fled to London and his son, Peter, who was an infant at the time, was smuggled out by a nurse when he was deemed old enough to make the journey. David Garric became a British subject upon his arrival in Britain, some time after David Garricks birth the family moved to Lichfield, home to Garricks mother. His father, a captain in the army, was an officer stationed in Gibraltar through most of young Garricks childhood. Garrick was the third of seven children and his brother, George. The playwright and actor Charles Dibdin recorded that George, discovering his brothers absence would often inquire Did David want me, upon Garricks death in 1779, it was noted that George died 48 hours later, leading some to speculate that David wanted him

8.
Pasquale Paoli
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Filippo Antonio Pasquale di Paoli was a Corsican patriot and leader, the president of the Executive Council of the General Diet of the People of Corsica. Paoli designed and wrote the Constitution of the state, the Corsican Republic was a representative democracy asserting that the elected Diet of Corsican representatives had no master. Paoli held his office by election and not by appointment and it made him commander-in-chief of the armed forces as well as chief magistrate. Paolis government claimed the same jurisdiction as the Republic of Genoa, following the French conquest of Corsica in 1768, Paoli oversaw the Corsican resistance. Following the defeat of Corsican forces at the Battle of Ponte Novu he was forced into exile in Britain where he was a celebrated figure and he returned after the French Revolution which he was initially supportive of. He later broke with the revolutionaries and helped to create the Anglo-Corsican Kingdom which lasted between 1794 and 1796, after the island was re-occupied by France he again went into exile in Britain where he died in 1807. Paoli was born in the hamlet of Stretta, Morosaglia commune, part of the ancient parish of Rostino, Haute-Corse, prior to that century Corsicans more or less accepted Genoan rule. By 1729, the year of first rebellion, the Genovese were regarded as failing in their task of government, the major problems were the high murder rate because of the custom of vendetta, the raiding of coastal villages by the Barbary pirates, oppressive taxes and economic depression. In the rebellion of 1729 over a new tax, the Genovese withdrew into their citadels and sent for foreign interventions, first from Austria, defeated by professional troops the Corsicans ceded violence but kept their organization. After surrendering to the French in 1739 Giacinto Paoli went into exile in Naples with his then 14-year-old son, an older brother, Clemente, remained at home as a liaison to the revolutionary diet, or assembly of the people. Corsica was subsequently distracted by the War of the Austrian Succession during which troops of a number of countries occupied the cities of Corsica. In Naples Giacinto perceiving that he had a talented son spared no effort or expense in his education, the enlightenment of which Pasquale was to become a part was neo-classical in its art, architecture and sentiments. Paoli is said once to have heard an old man on the road reciting Vergil, walked up behind him, clapped him on the back, in 1741 Pasquale joined the Corsican regiment of the royal Neapolitan army and served in Calabria under his father. Corsican exiles in Italy were seeking assistance for the revolution, including a skilled general. In 1736 the exiles of Genoa had discovered Theodor von Neuhoff, a soldier of fortune whom they were willing to make king, but he was unsuccessful and in 1754 languished in debtors prison in London. The young Pasquale became of interest when in opposition to a plan to ask the Knights of Malta to assume command he devised a plan for a native Corsican government. In that year Giacinto decided that Pasquale was ready to supplant Theodore, the subsequent popular election called by Vincente at Caccia made Pasquale General-in-Chief of Corsica, commander of all resistance. Corsica at that time was still under the influence of feuding clans, the lowlanders now held an election of their own and elected Mario Matra as commander, who promptly attacked the supporters of Paoli

9.
Adam Smith
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Adam Smith FRSA was a Scottish economist, philosopher, and author. He was a philosopher, a pioneer of political economy. He is best known for two works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and An Inquiry into the Nature. The latter, usually abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work of economics. Smith studied social philosophy at the University of Glasgow and at Balliol College, Oxford, after graduating, he delivered a successful series of public lectures at Edinburgh, leading him to collaborate with David Hume during the Scottish Enlightenment. Smith obtained a professorship at Glasgow teaching moral philosophy, and during this time he wrote, in his later life, he took a tutoring position that allowed him to travel throughout Europe, where he met other intellectual leaders of his day. Smith laid the foundations of free market economic theory. The Wealth of Nations was a precursor to the academic discipline of economics. In this and other works, he developed the concept of division of labour, Smith was controversial in his own day and his general approach and writing style were often satirised by Tory writers in the moralising tradition of William Hogarth and Jonathan Swift. In 2005, The Wealth of Nations was named among the 100 Best Scottish Books of all time, the minor planet 12838 Adamsmith was named in his memory. Smith was born in Kirkcaldy, in the County of Fife and his father, also Adam Smith, was a Scottish Writer to the Signet, advocate, and prosecutor and also served as comptroller of the Customs in Kirkcaldy. In 1720 he married Margaret Douglas, daughter of the landed Robert Douglas of Strathendry and his father died two months after he was born, leaving his mother a widow. The date of Smiths baptism into the Church of Scotland at Kirkcaldy was 5 June 1723, and this has often been treated as if it were also his date of birth, Smith was close to his mother, who probably encouraged him to pursue his scholarly ambitions. He attended the Burgh School of Kirkcaldy—characterised by Rae as one of the best secondary schools of Scotland at that period—from 1729 to 1737, he learned Latin, mathematics, history, Smith entered the University of Glasgow when he was fourteen and studied moral philosophy under Francis Hutcheson. Here, Smith developed his passion for liberty, reason, in 1740 Smith was the graduate scholar presented to undertake postgraduate studies at Balliol College, Oxford, under the Snell Exhibition. Adam Smith considered the teaching at Glasgow to be far superior to that at Oxford, according to William Robert Scott, The Oxford of time gave little if any help towards what was to be his lifework. Nevertheless, Smith took the opportunity while at Oxford to teach several subjects by reading many books from the shelves of the large Bodleian Library. When Smith was not studying on his own, his time at Oxford was not a happy one, near the end of his time there, Smith began suffering from shaking fits, probably the symptoms of a nervous breakdown

10.
Charles James Fox
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His father Henry, a leading Whig of his day, had similarly been the great rival of Pitts famous father. He rose to prominence in the House of Commons as a forceful and eloquent speaker with a notorious and colourful life, though his opinions were rather conservative. Fox became a prominent and staunch opponent of George III, whom he regarded as a tyrant, he supported the American Patriots. Briefly serving as Britains first Foreign Secretary in the ministry of the Marquess of Rockingham in 1782, he returned to the post in a coalition government with his old enemy Lord North in 1783. After Pitts death in January 1806, Fox served briefly as Foreign Secretary in the Ministry of All the Talents of William Grenville, before he died on 13 September 1806, aged 57. Fox was born at 9 Conduit Street, London, the surviving son of Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland, and Lady Caroline Lennox. Henry Fox was an ally of Robert Walpole and rival of Pitt the Elder and he had amassed a considerable fortune by exploiting his position as Paymaster General of the forces. Foxs elder brother, Stephen became 2nd Baron Holland and his younger brother, Henry, had a distinguished military career. The stories of Charless over-indulgence by his father are legendary. It was said that Charles once expressed a desire to break his fathers watch and was not restrained or punished when he duly smashed it on the floor. In later life he was always to have carried a copy of Horace in his coat pocket. On this trip, Charles was given an amount of money with which to learn to gamble by his father. These three pursuits – gambling, womanising and the love of things and fashions foreign – would become, once inculcated in his adolescence, Fox entered Hertford College, Oxford, in October 1764, although he would later leave without taking a degree, rather contemptuous of its nonsenses. For the 1768 general election, Henry Fox bought his son a seat in Parliament for the West Sussex constituency of Midhurst, though Charles was still nineteen, thus he spent much of his early years unwittingly manufacturing ammunition for his later critics and their accusations of hypocrisy. A supporter of the Grafton and North ministries, Fox was prominent in the campaign to punish the radical John Wilkes for challenging the Commons and he thus opened his career by speaking in behalf of the Commons against the people and their elected representative. Consequently, both Fox and his brother, Stephen, were insulted and pelted with mud in the street by the pro-Wilkes London crowds, however, between 1770 and 1774, Foxs seemingly promising career in the political establishment was spoiled. Behind these incidents lay his familys resentment towards Lord North for refusing to elevate the Holland barony to an earldom, but the fact that such a young man could seemingly treat ministerial office so lightly was noted at court. George III, also observing Foxs licentious private behaviour, took it to be presumption and he drifted from his rather unideological family-oriented politics into the orbit of the Rockingham Whig party

11.
Edward Gibbon
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Edward Gibbon FRS was an English historian, writer and Member of Parliament. Edward Gibbon was born in 1737, the son of Edward and Judith Gibbon at Lime Grove and he had six siblings, five brothers and one sister, all of whom died in infancy. As a youth, Gibbons health was under constant threat and he described himself as a puny child, neglected by my Mother, starved by my nurse. At age nine, he was sent to Dr. Woddesons school at Kingston upon Thames and he then took up residence in the Westminster School boarding house, owned by his adored Aunt Kitty, Catherine Porten. Following a stay at Bath in 1752 to improve his health, at the age of 15 Gibbon was sent by his father to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was enrolled as a gentleman-commoner. He was ill-suited, however, to the atmosphere and later rued his 14 months there as the most idle and unprofitable of his life. In that tract, Middleton denied the validity of such powers, Gibbon promptly objected and he was further corrupted by the free thinking deism of the playwright/poet couple David and Lucy Mallet, and finally Gibbons father, already in despair, had had enough. David Womersley has shown, however, that Gibbons claim to having been converted by a reading of Middleton is very unlikely, and was introduced only into the final draft of the Memoirs in 1792–93. Within weeks of his conversion, the adolescent was removed from Oxford and sent to live under the care and tutelage of Daniel Pavillard, Reformed pastor of Lausanne, Switzerland. It was here that he one of his lifes two great friendships, that of Jacques Georges Deyverdun, and that of John Baker Holroyd. Just a year and a later, after his father threatened to disinherit him, on Christmas Day,1754. The various articles of the Romish creed, he wrote, disappeared like a dream, Gibbon returned to England in August 1758 to face his father. There could be no refusal of the elders wishes, Gibbon put it this way, I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son. He proceeded to cut off all contact with Curchod, even as she vowed to wait for him and their final emotional break apparently came at Ferney, France in the spring of 1764, though they did see each other at least one more time a year later. The following year he embarked on the Grand Tour, which included a visit to Rome, Womersley notes the existence of good reasons to doubt the statements accuracy. In June 1765, Gibbon returned to his fathers house, and these years were considered by Gibbon as the worst five of his life, but he tried to remain busy by making early attempts towards writing full histories. His first historical narrative known as the History of Switzerland, which represented Gibbons love for Switzerland, was never published nor finished, even under the guidance of Deyverdun, Gibbon became too critical of himself, and completely abandoned the project, only writing 60 pages of text. However, after Gibbons death, his writings on Switzerlands history were discovered and published by Lord Sheffield in 1815, soon after abandoning his History of Switzerland, Gibbon made another attempt towards completing a full history

12.
Joseph Banks
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Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS was a British naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. Banks made his name on the 1766 natural history expedition to Newfoundland and he took part in Captain James Cooks first great voyage, visiting Brazil, Tahiti, and, after 6 months in New Zealand, Australia, returning to immediate fame. He held the position of President of the Royal Society for over 41 years and he advised King George III on the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and by sending botanists around the world to collect plants, he made Kew the worlds leading botanical gardens. He is credited with introducing the eucalyptus, acacia, and the named after him, Banksia. Approximately 80 species of plants bear his name and he was the leading founder of the African Association and a member of the Society of Dilettanti which helped to establish the Royal Academy. Banks was born on Argyle Street in London to William Banks, a wealthy Lincolnshire country squire and member of the House of Commons and he had a younger sister, Sarah Sophia Banks, born in 1744. Banks was educated at Harrow School from the age of 9 and at Eton College from 1756, as a boy, Banks enjoyed exploring the Lincolnshire countryside and developed a keen interest in nature, history and botany. When he was 17, he was inoculated with smallpox, but he became ill, in late 1760, he was enrolled as a gentleman-commoner at the University of Oxford. At Oxford, he matriculated at Christ Church, where his studies were focused on natural history rather than the classical curriculum. Determined to receive instruction, he paid the Cambridge botanist Israel Lyons to deliver a series of lectures at Oxford in 1764. Banks left Oxford for Chelsea in December 1763 and he continued to attend the university until 1764, but left that year without taking a degree. He began to make friends among the men of his day and to correspond with Carl Linnaeus. As Bankss influence increased, he became an adviser to King George III and urged the monarch to support voyages of discovery to new lands and he became a Freemason sometime before 1769. He made his name by publishing the first Linnean descriptions of the plants and animals of Newfoundland and his diary, describing his expedition to Newfoundland, was rediscovered recently in the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia. Banks also documented 34 species of birds, including the great auk, on 7 May, he noted a large number of penguins swimming around the ship on the Grand Banks, and a specimen he collected in Chateau Bay, Labrador, was later identified as the great auk. Banks was appointed to a joint Royal Navy/Royal Society scientific expedition to the south Pacific Ocean on HMS Endeavour and this was the first of James Cooks voyages of discovery in that region. Banks funded seven others to him, the Swedish naturalist Daniel Solander. The voyage went to Brazil, where Banks made the first scientific description of a now common garden plant, bougainvillea, and to other parts of South America

Boswell's Edinburgh. In his journals he often mentions using the "Back Stairs" behind Parliament Close. His birthplace was the family's town house on the east side of the close, just around the corner at the top of the steps.